SFO Express
Your airport journey revolutionized with a single touch.
The Problem
For most, traveling has become a stressful and restless task rather than a journey of exploration and excitement. "An airport is a transition, not a destination. There's nothing to do but pass through it," one traveler states. This is due to the fact that travelers tend to spend most of their time waiting, either in lines at TSA or at the gate. Furthermore, when travelers do have time to spare, it is difficult for travelers to efficiently identify engaging nearby activities. In order to ensure that the airport experience is as enjoyable as the rest of the travel journey, it is imperative to provide travelers with a wealth of information at a click of a button in order to navigate the airport effectively and make the airport experience as enjoyable as the rest of the travel journey.
User Research
The goal of this research was the airport experience from others' perspectives as well as identify the pain points of travelers while navigating through airport. In order to gather this information, interviewees were asked more open-ended questions such as walkthroughs of their departure and arrival experience and prompts for memorable moments. In order to gain information from a variety of individuals, we not only conducted interviews with 12 individuals, but also facilitated a focus group discussion with 5 individuals of varying ages and professions. Secondary research was sourced from McKinsey's external research on detrimental factors of an airport's customer satisfaction.
User Insights
The user research revealed that the majority of travelers endure rather than enjoy the airport experience. Most individuals described the process as one filled with stress and anxiety, specifically the departure aspect. They leave at least 2 hours before their flight and even so, fell "rushed and hectic" on the way to and at the airport itself. There was also a general consensus that international airports are more "fun" and "exciting" than domestic airports as there is more to do and explore; however, there was also a caveat to this: it was difficult to enjoy these airports sometimes due to the lack of information about the activities available in the airport.
Divergent Thinking A couple ideas that transpired from the initial ideation process included providing time markers in the TSA line, installing panels on the sides of the TSA line to speed up the process of unpacking electronics, investing in more signage in the departure area, provide flight information through an application or text messages for more ease .
Convergent Thinking The user research indicated that the departure experience was the source of stress and anxiety for most travelers, specifically the process of getting to the airport, checking-in, and TSA. Furthermore, once individuals are more relaxed after TSA, there is minimal information for travelers about the variety of activities available for them to explore. Thus, I decided to create an application that includes all this information at the touch of a button to ensure ease throughout the airport experience.
Design Process
Low-Fidelity Prototype Sketches of application wireframe
Mid-Fidelity Prototype Figma was used to create mid-fidelity prototypes using feedback received from the low-fidelity prototypes.
User Testing After the mid-fidelity design was created, the designs and prototypes were shown to users with a variety of traveling experiences as well as design experience. A few modifications made included condensing the 'Wait Time' aspect to a single screen instead of two, rounding out the buttons to make them more user friendly, adding icons to ease the visual aspect, and making the back buttons more visible.
High Fidelity Prototype The purpose of designing this mobile application was to increase travelers availability to information about the SFO airport to ensure ease while navigating the airport. On the other hand, in order to ensure ease while navigating the mobile application, the UI layout was kept simple and clean without too many buttons and minimal screens.
IOS User Flow
